North Fork Yuba River Fly Fishing Report

Jon Baiocchi reports on 8.22.18

North Fork Yuba River Report

Conditions remain the same for the North Fork Yuba River with a few slight changes. There is a Trico spinner fall when air temps reach 65 to 70 degrees. The trout are rising to spent spinners in the film, Also, the little western Green Drake is out in very small numbers. Now that the kids are back in school there is very little fishing pressure on the river. Another consideration now that the days are getting shorter is starting out at around 9am. It’s weird, those rainbows actually prefer sun on the water, and your catch rates increase because of such. I’m finding more trout in idle calm frog water just slowly finning and looking for terrestrials. To catch these fish one must be extra stealthy. I tested the Sage Dart 0 weight rod last week and what a sweet little rod!

You can read my review here; https://jonbaiocchiflyfishingnews.blogspot.com/2018/08/sage-dart-0-weight-rod-review.html

As we creep into fall, you’re going to want to focus on the middle and lower sections of the NFYR watershed. There are bigger October caddis hatches in these areas, and overall bigger fish in the system. 

In late October into November brown trout will be swimming upstream to spawn downstream of Downieville to sections of the river that follow the Cabin Creek trail. A good tactic is to spot fish in the tail outs of runs using binoculars high up on highway 49. When the sun is overhead, they can be easy to spot in the gin clear water. I hope I have some time to do this myself. See you on the water…